


The Other Half Of The Equation

by lamardeuse



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-28
Updated: 2010-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:17:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months ago, he'd never have considered that "death without honour" would ever be on a par with "death from soul-sucking alien."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Half Of The Equation

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to misspamela for a fabulous beta.
> 
> Please see the end notes for an additional warning.

If Rodney took time to think about it—which given the million other things he was tasked with thinking about, wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon—he would have realized it sooner.

As it was, it took a dying man’s words to alert him to the inescapable fact that he _had_, in fact, changed.  At some point, he had stopped being one of the guys who hid under his desk when the scary stuff happened.  He wasn’t a hero by any means, but he could occasionally be prone to fits of unscheduled bravery.

To be fair, recent events tended to skew his perspective at first.  The truth was that he was spending _more _of his life terrified rather than less, but this was so only because the frequency of terror-inducing stimuli had increased dramatically since his entry into the Pegasus galaxy.  Not only the quantity:  the _quality _of said terror had also been heightened.  Where before his greatest fear had been whether he’d jab the Epipen into his leg fast enough after mistakenly ingesting a sliver of orange rind, now there were about a dozen nightmares competing for the top spot, each of them spectacularly horrific in their own way.

One of them was the fear that he’d die a coward.

And that was where the change really, for want of a more intellectual metaphor, knocked him on his ass.  A few months ago, he’d never have considered that “death without honour” would ever be on a par with “death from soul-sucking alien,” but at some point the collective weight of the courage of everyone around him had borne him to the ground, grinding him into the dirt.  And that wasn’t a position Rodney McKay was used to.  He’d always looked down, not up, but when the laws of aerodynamics changed to include self-sacrifice and stoicism, he was forced to hammer out a new set of wings for himself.

The turning point had been obvious; it had been when Kolya had broken him with pathetic ease, though Rodney had always known his weakness was knives, because he had nightmares about getting his throat cut and after they’d made him bleed they’d laid the flat of the blade against his jugular and oh God, oh God he just couldn’t—

Anyway.  That in and of itself would have been bad enough, but it was unflatteringly juxtaposed with the discovery that Major John Sheppard was not only an Air Force pilot but also an extremely competent and cold-blooded killer.  Major Sheppard had, it would seem, been trained in tactics that were outside the scope of what Rodney knew of regular military training.   Major Sheppard had _skills_.  Major Sheppard could dispatch sixty of his fellow human beings and not blink an eye.  While it wasn’t something Rodney wanted to aspire to per se, Sheppard’s conduct during the occupation of Atlantis tended to throw his own lack of backbone into sharp relief.

So where did that leave him?  Well, he was still looking up, but maybe he wasn’t always getting a crick in his neck from the steepness of the angle.  He stepped forward instead of stepping back; he acted on instinct rather than logic; he did really stupid shit like emptying 9 mm clips into Wraith he knew he couldn’t kill.  Even worse considering his past history, there was not a lot in it for him, because there was no way for him to win on this playing field given the strength of the competition.  But when it came to his newly hatched bravery, he didn’t care about being the best, only about being good enough.  About being worthy of the rest of them.

For a while he consoled himself with the thought that it was a form of vanity, after all.  It wasn’t really courage if you just didn’t want to be the only guy with brown trousers when everything went to hell.

The third time he was wakened by the sound of a single gunshot, he knew there was more to it.

There had been a comfort in being one of the ones allowed to hide under the desk.  Despite his vaunted intelligence, Rodney hadn’t realized until now that a decision he thought was solely personal and selfish was in fact a burden, a responsibility so basic it was beyond comprehension.  But the simple truth was this:  the moment you stood on your own two feet, there were others who would look up to you, who would expect you to shield them, who would expect you to save them. 

He was used to being counted on to do his job, to figure out a new algorithm, to come up with a new way of looking at the universe.  He didn’t know if he could handle being counted on to keep people _alive_. 

Because so far, it didn’t look like he was doing such a terrific job of it.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
John finished page thirty-three right on schedule.  Okay, so it was better than _Fathers and Sons_, but keeping track of the characters was going to be a real headache.  Maybe he could draw up a family tree and tack it to the wall over his bed; he’d get another week out of the novel if he took his time with it. 

He set _War and Peace_ on his nightstand and palmed the light.  As his eyes closed, he heard the knock. 

Another knock came before he could speak.  “Major?  Are you awake?”

John couldn’t stop the smirk.  “And if I say no?”

There was a pause.  “Never mind.  It’s not—urgent.”

John frowned; coming from McKay, that was tantamount to a groveling apology.  He willed the door to _open_; it slid to reveal Rodney as John palmed the light back on.

Rodney’s mouth opened.  “How did you do that?”

“I’ve been practicing,” John drawled, sitting up.  “Is that what you came to ask me about?”

Rodney took a step forward and opened his mouth again.  Then, to John’s shock and awe, he closed it.   
   
“Rodney, are you all right?”

Rodney’s gaze shifted from John’s face to a spot on the wall above his head.  “I—uh.  I keep dreaming.  About Brendan.  Gaul.”

_Close_, John thought, and the door obeyed graciously.  Rodney still wasn’t looking at him.  “Why don’t you sit down,” John said heavily.  He’d known this was coming, read it in McKay’s increasingly haggard appearance over the past week.  John could sympathize with Rodney, he really could, but he’d had this conversation with a dozen junior officers in the past, not to mention with himself about a hundred fucking times over the course of his career, and he was getting heartily sick of the same damned pep talk. 

He told himself that Rodney hadn’t signed up for this; the responsibility, if not of command, then of being the guy whose decisions might lead to someone other than himself dying.  That wasn’t a scenario they taught you in physics class.  But that was bullshit, too, because until you’d had it happen to you, you had no idea what you were signing up for. 

Rodney sat, to John’s mild surprise, beside him on the bed, close but not too close.  He folded his hands in his lap and stared at them.  “I keep hearing the shot.  Seeing him lying there, with—”  He cut himself off; one hand flopped aimlessly, then lay still, as if it too had given up hope of explaining what was in Rodney’s head. 

John studied the side of Rodney’s face, the muscle leaping in his clenched jaw, the sweep of his lashes as he blinked at his unusually quiet hands.  He thought back to those dozens, hundreds of conversations, and wondered why this one had to be the same.

The thought came swiftly:  it _didn’t _have to be.  Those other guys he talked to had to reconcile themselves to their role; Rodney didn’t have to take it on, period.

“I know what Gaul looked like,” John heard himself snap.  “I brought the body out.”

Rodney’s chest rose, then fell.  “How do you—live with it?”

“With what?” John demanded, knowing what the answer was going to be and hoping against hope that Rodney wouldn’t say it.

“With—thinking about the decisions we made.  Thinking about what we could have done differently.  I mean, I just keep playing it over and over and over, what if, what if—” Rodney scrubbed a hand over his face.  “God, I—wish we could go back and do it all over again, get it right this time.  I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t help it.”

John didn’t react.  “There was no other decision to make.  I acted on the intel we had; the intel was sound at the time.”

“But we shouldn’t have left them—”

“What’s this ‘we’ business, McKay?” John said coldly.

Rodney turned to him then, his generous mouth falling open slightly in surprise.  John held his gaze and concentrated on being the bastard he’d been trained to be.

“Let’s get one thing straight:  there is no ‘we.’ _ I_ was commanding that mission, and I made the decisions as to who would go with who, and who would do what.  _I _was the sole military representative.  You were not responsible for anything that happened on that mission.”

Rodney flinched, and not in relief.  “But I—”

“Guilt isn’t your style, Rodney,” John told him, hating himself a little more.  “Why don’t you go back to what you’re good at?”

To John’s surprise, Rodney didn’t yell or rant or rave.  He stared at John as though he’d forgotten where he was, like a kid who’d lost his mom in the mall.  Then he got up without a word and headed for the door.

_Open_, John thought.  The door obeyed him without question. 

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Upon reflection, it would have been fun to lord this one over him.  But if Sheppard died, there wouldn’t be much opportunity for gloating.

“McKay!” John was shouting.  “Rodney!  Don’t come any closer!”

This time there was no selfish motive behind his actions—well, apart from the potential gloating, of course.  They’d walked through the gate, not flown through it, and there was nothing sinister on this planet that required Major Sheppard’s special skills.  No, this was simply John misjudging the alien terrain and causing an unstable section of cliff to collapse under him, causing him in turn to be hanging by his fingernails off a likely similarly unstable section of cliff.  Even if Rodney could get off on being a hero, he’d have to settle for hero by default. Ford and Teyla had gone off to explore another area and even at top speed wouldn’t be here for another few minutes.

“I mean it, goddammit!” Sheppard yelled.  “The whole thing is likely to go.”

“The whole thing will _definitely _go if you don’t grab onto my goddamn hand _right now_,” Rodney yelled back, wiggling his fingers in an impatient manner near John’s face.  He was now lying flat on the ground with his legs spread, reasoning that if he distributed his weight over as much surface as possible, he was less likely to cause another rock slide.  He was hoping that once John grabbed onto him, he’d just let him use his body like a ladder, because there was no way that Rodney would have the strength to pull him up, even with the jolt of adrenaline.  Rodney always figured those tales of superhuman strength under extreme duress were embellished anyway; it was highly unlikely that—

“Rodney.  Move _away _from the cliff _now_.  That is an order.”

And suddenly, at the most inopportune time, that humiliating incident in Sheppard’s quarters last week finally came into sharp focus, and Rodney could see all the hard, brittle edges of the Major’s words for what they were, or at least what he hoped they were, because you could never really be sure of another person’s—

“Rodney!”

Right.  Right.   Focus.  Rodney moved his hand to a spot beside John’s, where the Major could latch onto it easily.  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m done arguing with you.  This is my hand.  I suggest you let go of the ledge for no more than five thousandths of a second before getting ahold of it, or gravity will become even more of a problem for you than it is now.”

“Everything’s—physics with you—isn’t it?”  John grunted. 

“Nearly everything.  Now.  On three?”

“Rodney.”  
   
“Yes?”

“Shut up,” John told him, and then he took a deep breath, and then he grabbed Rodney’s hand and held on.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
“We have to talk,” Sheppard said as he breezed past Rodney.  Rodney wouldn’t have minded quite so much if it hadn’t been three in the morning, if he hadn’t been wakened from a sound sleep, and if he hadn’t worn his ratty old _Red Dwarf_ t-shirt to bed.

“Why certainly, Major, come right in,” he intoned dryly.  “_Mi casa es su casa,_ as they say, although considering the last words you spoke to me were ‘shut up’, I don’t know how you expect me to—”

“Shut up, Rodney.”

“Oh, for God’s—make up your mind, will you?”

“Okay.  I’ll talk.  You listen.”

“Now wait a minute—”

John spun around, and suddenly his face was about an inch from Rodney’s.  “Don’t worry, I’m going to give you the short version.  Trying repeatedly to sacrifice your own life will not bring Gaul and Abrams back.”

Rodney folded his arms, though he had to step back a little to find the space to do it.  “Are you sure you shouldn’t be giving yourself that advice?  That was a pretty amateur stunt this afternoon.” 

“I’ve gotten people killed before,” John said, his lip twisting in a chilling parody of his normal smile.  “It’s not a new feeling.”

Rodney pressed his own lips together, though inside his heart was trying to hammer its way out of his chest.  _Don’t sweat, for Chrissakes don’t sweat._  “I’m not trying to sacrifice myself.  I’m just trying to do what’s right.  And if I hadn’t done what I did today, you’d probably be dead.”

“You’re not responsible for me or anyone else—”

Rodney shook his head.  “Forget it.  You tried that one already and I don’t believe it.  I’m part of your team.  I may not be Rambo, but I’m going to pull my own weight as best I can.”

“By playing the hero.”

“Goddammit,” Rodney spat, unknotting his arms and clenching his fists, “I’m not playing at _anything_!  The Wraith, the Genii, the continent-spanning hurricanes, the inescapable fact that we could _die _in a million spectacularly unpleasant ways—all of these are _real_!”  
   
“And you contribute more than your fair share by finding scientific solutions to those problems, and you do a damned good job of it.  But you’re not military, Rodney; you don’t have the training.”

“Then train me,” Rodney heard himself say.  God, what was he _doing_?  “I can exercise more—maybe Teyla can show me that trick with the sticks—”

“Jesus Christ,” Sheppard roared, “why do you _want _this so much?”

“I don’t know!” Rodney yelled back.  “Don’t you think I’ve been trying to figure that out?  I mean, look at me—I had a one hundred percent average in every math and science course I took in high school and I almost failed phys ed!  Before I came here, I had shot a gun exactly three times and two of those times I was trying to impress girls on the carnival midway.”

“Did you impress them?” Sheppard asked, one eyebrow quirking.

“Not unless you count a cheap plastic toy which can only be detected by an electron microscope to be impressive.”

John shook his head slowly, his mouth clearly fighting a smile, and Rodney had the overwhelming urge to beat him senseless.  He was only stopped by the knowledge that he probably wouldn’t even land a single punch.

He took a deep breath, let it out.  “Let me ask you something,” Rodney said, as slowly as he could.  “Why does it always have to be your job?”

John stared at him for a long moment.  For once, Rodney wished he had paid more attention to the behaviour of his fellow human beings, because he couldn’t tell what the hell that look meant.  Finally, Sheppard said, “Because whether you like it or not, Rodney, when we go out on a mission it is my job, and no one else’s.  And because it’s not what everybody tells you it is.  It’s not a fucking movie, with medals and ticker tape parades and the thanks of a grateful nation.  It’s lying alone at night and wondering what you could have done.  Wishing you could turn back the clock and do it all differently, even though you know it’s ridiculous.”

“Major, I—”

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” John said softly, and suddenly he was the guy he’d been before Rodney saw him efficiently kill sixty people, only infinitely more weary. 

“John.”  Sheppard looked up at him, startled, though no more than Rodney was. 

“What?” John asked warily.

Rodney sighed.  “Nothing.  Never mind.  I’m the last person to be offering emotional support.  Only—I only want to say that I understand.  Some of it.”

John shook his head sadly.  “I hope like hell you never get to understand all of it,” he said, and then he walked around Rodney and let himself out.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
John leaned against the door to the gym and took in the tableau before him.  Teyla was standing over Rodney, looking down at his flushed and sweating face.  His furry knees were bent, his feet flat on the mat.  The fighting sticks were braced across his chest, wobbling up and down with the expansion and contraction of his lungs. 

“Doctor, I believe that is enough for today,” Teyla said gently.

Rodney rolled sideways, gasping as he put weight on his shoulder.  “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” he babbled, waving a hand.  “One more round.”

“You have done very well for this session,” Teyla was saying, ignoring him, “but I would counsel—”

“I’m ready to go,” Rodney persisted, rising a little shakily to his feet.  He turned and caught sight of John, then straightened even further.  Both men winced automatically at the distinct cracking sound.

“Teyla,” John drawled, “have you broken Rodney again?”

She shot him one of her patented wry looks.  “Doctor McKay is becoming a worthy opponent,” she told him.  “But he still needs to learn his own limits.”

“Yeah,” John agreed, keeping his eyes on Teyla.  “He doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Hello?  I’m still in the room, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Why don’t you let me tire him out,” John said, leaning in closer to Teyla.  “That way if he has a stroke you won’t have to live with the guilt.”

Teyla raised her eyebrows to show she was above such low amusement, though her eyes twinkled with merriment.  She nodded, and turned back to McKay.  “Thank you for an excellent workout, Doctor.”  She inclined her head, then handed John her sticks and left them alone.

John caught the shadowed flicker of panic in Rodney’s eyes as they faced off.  He made his smile as predatory as possible, and was grimly pleased to see the flicker reappear. 

“Yes, yes, you have the psychological advantage too,” Rodney snapped.  “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.”  He threw the sticks aside.  Rodney watched them clatter to the floor.

“What are you—”

“Wraith don’t fight with sticks,” John said, and pounced.

To his credit, Rodney lasted nearly a minute.  He was quicker than John expected him to be, and he landed a good hit on John’s right wrist when he made a move for Rodney’s throat.  There’d be a bruise there tomorrow.

That didn’t alter the fact that at the end of that minute, Rodney was disarmed and pinned under John’s body.  He struggled for a moment, then abruptly lay still, and John felt the capitulation like a stunner blast. 

“Rodney—” he began.

Rodney squeezed his eyes shut.  “Get off me.  Please.”

John obeyed, and Rodney heaved himself to his feet.  Half-turned away from John, he said, “You’ve proven your point.”

John stared at him; he hadn’t thought Rodney would give up that easily.  _But isn’t that what you were hoping for?_

Rodney captured John’s gaze with his own, and it struck him that Rodney had finally been broken, but not by Teyla.  “Look, you’re getting better,” he said, while inside his head a voice was screaming at him to _shut up_.  “Just give it some time…”

Rodney barked a harsh laugh.  “Yes, I’m sure in time I’ll manage to become a danger to others as well as myself.”

“That’s not what I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rodney murmured, turning the sticks over in his hands, then setting them down carefully beside the others.  As he headed for the door, he turned and said, “Congratulations, Major.  Once again, you’re the only one left standing.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney came through the Gate with the same sense of disorientation he always experienced, only this time it was as though he’d been turned inside out as well as upside down.  The same mindless litany that had been running through his head in an endless loop for the last twenty minutes droned on as he stumbled down the ramp, eyes fixed on the phantom image of a body falling over and over again.

_I think I killed him, oh jesus I did I killed another human being oh shit—_

Somewhere far away he heard running footsteps, Elizabeth’s voice, John’s voice, both speaking quickly, the words disjointed and jumbled:  _skirmish        small scouting party      Genii     exchanged fire_.  And then there was a hand on his arm, and he slowly raised his head.  Teyla was holding onto him, her touch firm and strong, and her gaze too damned understanding for him to hold it together for long.

“Come,” she said softly.  “I will take you to see Doctor Beckett now.”

Rodney looked away when he felt tears prick his eyes.  “Will that help?”

A pause.  “Probably not,” Teyla admitted.

“Fine,” Rodney breathed, forcing his feet to move.  “As long as we’re agreed on that.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
When the debriefing was over and John had convinced Elizabeth to leave Rodney the hell alone, at least for the next couple of days, he debated following his own advice, then vetoed it.  He’d already FUBARed the whole situation; what was another mistake now?

Rodney’s eyes were red-rimmed and hollow when he answered the door, and John felt like twenty kinds of shit with a few more thrown in for good measure.  “Yes, I suspected it was you,” Rodney snapped.  “I thought to myself, ‘How could this day possibly get any worse?’ and then you showed up.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“There was nothing else you could have done,” John blurted, figuring he’d get the main point out of the way quickly since Rodney was going to close the door on him any second.

“Yes, there was.  There were at least three other things.  I could have yelled at Ford to duck—”

John shook his head.  “He might not have reacted in time.  Teyla said the guy was about to shoot—”

“—I could have let you take the shot—”

“—I wasn’t even aiming at him, my gun was pointed in the opposite direction, we were in a two-way ambush—”

“—and I could have aimed for something that wouldn’t have killed him!  A leg, an arm, his left fucking foot!” Out of the corner of his eye John detected a Marine walking by who gave them a curious look, but thankfully continued on his way. 

John leaned in closer, lowering his voice.  “The first thing you learn in weapons training is to aim for the center of mass.  Teyla, Ford or I would have done the exact same thing, and the guy would have been just as dead as he is now.”

Rodney folded his arms across his chest and took a step back.  He shook his head slowly.  “I don’t—I can’t—”

Taking advantage of Rodney’s retreat, John stepped into the room and willed the door to close behind him.  “You did, and you can,” he said firmly, watching as his hands closed around Rodney’s elbows.  He gave Rodney a gentle shake, and watched the top of his bent head wobble slightly.  “I know how it sounds, but you did the right thing.  The team needed you, Rodney, and we were damned glad you were there.”

Rodney raised his head slowly.  When his gaze was aimed right at John, there was certainly no overt warning that he was about to—

“Son-of-a-_bitch_,” Rodney growled, hauling back and landing a solid right hook on John’s jaw just as the last word hit the air.

“Ow!  Fuck!” John said, because, well, that _hurt_, and maybe he’d deserved it, but _man_.  And then he was struggling to keep his feet under him, because Rodney was shoving him backward roughly, strength John didn’t know the scientist possessed propelling them until his back landed _thunk!_ against a wall, and—

“Ow!  Fuck!” John repeated, because it bore repeating.

“The _team _needed me?” Rodney growled.  “Oh, so now I’m part of the _team_?  For how long, Major?  Until the next time I blow a hole in someone, and then you’ll decide I’ve had _enough _of playing the _hero_—”  He punctuated his words with shoves of John’s shoulders against the wall “—and I’ll be left in _limbo _again?”

“I’m not going to—”

“Shut up,” Rodney snapped.  “I’ve heard enough of what you have to say.  Don’t you think I know it’s going to change me?  It already has, and most of the time it scares the living shit out of me.  But if I don’t change, I don’t have a hope in hell of surviving.  I don’t have a hope in hell of holding my _head _up with the rest of you.”

John frowned.  “It’s not a competition.”

“I know that!” Rodney snapped.  “Do you realize this is the first time I’ve attempted something new knowing there was no way I was going to excel at it?  I’m perfectly well aware that I’m one of the most inadequate warriors who ever walked the corridors of Atlantis.  But I have to try, because most days I walk around feeling like I—I’m only half of what I need to be.  I suppose that doesn’t make any sense to a professional hero like you, does it?”

John stared at Rodney, at his flushed, haggard face only inches from his own, and thought this would be a really bad time to pick to have a nervous breakdown. 

But he couldn’t seem to help himself.

Because it made perfect sense to him.  Fuck, he’d been _living _it since he fired the shot that put Sumner out of his misery, and that was a long time to spend hanging by his fingernails.

He was dimly aware that Rodney had let go of him, because he could feel the friction against his back as he slid slowly to the floor.  He could hear Rodney saying his name in a panicky voice, but he couldn’t be bothered to answer right away.

And then he felt Rodney’s warmth pressing along his side, and Rodney was babbling, “Oh thank God, you get it, I’m not alone, thank God.”

John drew his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead on them.  He took deep, calming breaths and fought the conflicting but equally unpleasant sensations that he was about to either float away or sink to the bottom of the ocean. 

“Yeah,” he said shakily, “I get it.”

Rodney shifted beside him, moving away, and John’s heart leapt.  “No.  Just—can you—”

“Okay,” Rodney murmured, and the warmth returned, “okay, yeah.  Good idea.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

   
After that, things started to get strange.

Well, granted, ‘strange’ was the mildest of words to describe just about every experience in the Pegasus galaxy, but their behaviour toward one another had never fit that term.  The way they interacted was fairly similar to the interactions Rodney had had with gorgeous, popular jocks in high school, the main difference being that he wasn’t getting stuffed in lockers any more.  The verbal self-defense they used on one another was familiar, comforting; it kept them at opposite ends of the cafeteria, where they belonged.

And now?  Now when they went out on a mission Rodney found himself touching John almost as often as John touched him, which was often enough for Teyla to start giving them private, Cheshire smiles whenever she caught them at it.  Hell, _Ford _was starting to notice, and while Ford was probably okay, once it got around that the military CO of Atlantis liked touching other guys, John’s career was going right down the toilet.  It wasn’t like there was anything inappropriate about them—at most there’d be a brief, guiding nudge on the arm, a slap on the back, a clap on the shoulder—but Rodney knew he ought to talk to John about it.

He ought to talk to John about it, but he didn’t; he let it go for weeks, weeks where they went out on missions and walked in one another’s orbits, breathed in the same air, completed one another’s sentences, moved in perfect synch.  And when they were home, John spent an inordinate amount of time in Rodney’s lab, poking at things and generally making a nuisance of himself.  And the most insane thing about this was that Rodney _didn’t mind_.  He put John to work and soon found the Major knew more than he ever could have guessed about power systems and thermodynamics, and that made Rodney want to touch him even more, and oh _God_, he was so screwed.  But Rodney had never had anything like this before with _anyone_; no way in hell was he going to give that up simply because it was the Right Thing To Do.  Besides, he rationalized, since when was it his responsibility to look out for John’s career?

And then he’d been without John the one time when it really counted, the one time when his brain was about to turn into soup from a deadly Ancient virus, and he ached, literally _ached _with John’s absence.  He alternated between rabid bouts of terror and a fervent desire that John was here with him, keeping him company, keeping him grounded.  Which when he had time to think about it was wrong on so many levels that it scared the shit out of him even more than the thought of certain death had.  Because even if John had been in a HAZMAT suit, what kind of sick weirdo wanted someone around so they could watch you die?

Apparently he had turned into just such a weirdo.  And that wasn’t good for either of them, he reasoned.  So he stopped touching John, even though it was like what he imagined drug withdrawal would feel like; some nights he woke up sweating and shivering, sheets tangled around his legs as though he’d been running for his life. 

Eventually John took the hint and stopped coming around the lab, and when they went on missions they stayed as far away from one another as possible, unless they were arguing.  Rodney noticed the arguments had taken on a sharp, desperate edge, like they were trying to shout through the distance between them, trying to find a way to plug back into that seamless connection.

It didn’t work.  And then John found somebody who was perfectly willing to touch him, and everything went to hell.

 

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
This time, John found Rodney still on his feet, legs apart and body in a defensive crouch as he faced Teyla.  The determined look on her face found a matching one on McKay’s face, only his was a lot sweatier. 

A few choice images from last night’s dream came to him; coincidentally, Rodney had been fairly sweaty in that situation too.  Only he’d been wearing a lot less.

John forced his gaze to switch to Teyla.  God, when the hell had she become the safer choice?

“You are improving, Doctor,” Teyla cooed, and the sound of Teyla cooing was something not to be missed.  “I believe we should arrange a meeting between you and my brother; you are evenly matched now.”

“Yeah?” Rodney said.  “How old is your brother?”

Teyla grinned.  “Fourteen.”

To John’s surprise, Rodney barked a laugh at that.  “Nice try.”  He stepped to his left, and Teyla followed his movements like a hawk scenting prey. 

Holy shit.  They were _serious_. 

Teyla lunged suddenly; Rodney parried with some effort, but John could tell it wasn’t everything he had to give.  Their sticks clashed against one another for a moment, and then Rodney twisted his sticks counterclockwise and shoved her away.

_Okay, _John told his dick, looking down and treating it to a stern look.  _This is a really bad time to be doing that._

Not that the other time it had happened recently had been a really great time either, he mused.  Chaya’s sweet demeanour and beautiful eyes had reminded him he hadn’t had sex with anything but his hand since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, but it had taken a juvenile shouting match with Rodney in the hallway to remind him what it felt like to want to start humping someone’s leg.  Well, okay, so he hadn’t had that urge since he was a teenager, but Rodney had an unfailing talent for bringing out the delinquent in him.

“May I cut in?” John heard himself ask.  Teyla turned around and looked right through his skin, and he could tell she knew he wasn’t offering to replace Rodney in this dance. 

“Of course,” she said, inclining her head to both of them.  “Thank you, Rodney.”

Rodney bowed to her and smiled, his chest heaving only slightly.  John tried not to jump him right there.

Rodney remained still for long moments after Teyla had left, his eyes on the door.  John stood a safe distance away and wished he knew what Rodney was thinking, wished he knew what to say.

“You’re back, then, are you?” Rodney said finally, eyes still on anything but John.  “I thought maybe you two were going to set up housekeeping in a little cabin in the woods.  You know, something small but with a spectacular view of the temple.  She’d have an easy commute to work, you could iron her robes and grovel at her feet…”

“I, uh,” John said, uncharacteristically at a loss for words, because he’d just seen how _serious _Rodney was, and for once he couldn’t find a way to make light of it.  “It, uh, wasn’t like that.  We just kind of—”

“Sorry, sorry,” Rodney interrupted, shaking his head violently.  “I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I cared.”

“Rodney.  Nothing happened.  Well, nothing that involved us—you know,” he said, with a lame wave of his hand.  “See, there was this glow, and then she—” He trailed off when Rodney turned toward him. 

Rodney was—he couldn’t tell _what _Rodney was.  The man was usually an open book, every emotion that he was feeling and a few he’d been feeling three hours ago showing up on his expressive features.  But today he looked—

God.  It was like looking in a mirror.

Very carefully, Rodney walked to the edge of the mat, where he laid his sticks down on the bench.  John watched his bare feet with their neatly squared-off toes as they approached, then forced himself to look up.

He barely had time to put his own sticks down before Rodney pounced.

John’s brain instantly kicked into fight mode, which tended to help him break reality into discrete elements based on the level of threat.  So a bird twittering in a tree was ignored, while the sound of a twig breaking behind him brought all his senses to maximum alert.  Right now he was having trouble achieving that level of focus, though, because pretty much everything related to Rodney was capturing his full attention; the sweat beading Rodney’s cockeyed upper lip was assigned the same priority as the foot aiming for his kneecap, and that just wasn’t an effective way to gain the upper hand.  No, in fact if John had been fighting for his life, he would have been an easy target, because he had obviously relinquished control of his higher brain functions to his dick.

And then Rodney’s foot almost collided with said contents, and he leapt out of the way just in time.  “Hey!” he yelled, crouching down and raising his hands.  “Where the hell did you pick _that _up?”

Rodney grinned an evil grin, and John prayed for strength.  “I’ve been taking extra lessons in hand-to-hand combat from Ford.”

And John knew exactly the kind of hand-to-hand lessons Ford would have given him:  dirty, desperate tactics for when you didn’t give a shit about being an officer and a gentleman, only about surviving long enough to jam the other guy’s nasal bone into his brain.  Of course, none of that stuff would work on the Wraith.  But it would still give you an edge, because a guy who felt confident with only his hands to save him felt like the baddest motherfucker in the valley, and you needed that ingredient to go up against some really bad motherfuckers.

Rodney’s next kick aimed a little too high, and John’s hands shot out to capture the ankle.  He yanked up sharply and Rodney yelped and toppled.  John stared stupidly as Rodney immediately tucked into a roll and was on his feet facing him in the next second.

“Huh,” John managed, but that was all he got out before Rodney barreled into his midsection and sent them both flying. 

He landed flat on the mat with Rodney on top of him, forcing the air from his lungs in an explosive whoosh.  Before he could move, Rodney had pinned his wrists to the mat and was leaning his upper body against his arms to keep them there. 

“No—fair,” John wheezed. _ I was distracted by your upper lip_, he wanted to add.

“There _is _no more fair, Major,” Rodney growled, and shit, Rodney was sitting on his stomach, all he had to do was lean back a little and he’d—

“Okay, great job, Rodney, hooray for you,” he snapped.  “Can you get off me now?”

“Not yet,” Rodney said, smiling as he pushed against John’s wrists a little harder.  “I’m kind of enjoying this.”

_So am I_, John thought, biting back a groan and praying for a swift death.

And then Rodney leaned back, ass brushing against John’s dick as it strained toward him.  He frowned, confused, pressed back again experimentally. 

Rodney’s eyes grew round as saucers, and suddenly he looked like himself again, because John had seen that look on his face a hundred times, that _golly gee whiz wow_ look he got when something they found in the Pegasus galaxy turned out to be cool and interesting instead of creepy and lethal. 

_Whoo-hoo,_ thought John.  _Rodney has discovered my dick._

“You—uh,” Rodney murmured intelligently.  “You—is that—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” John snapped, finally remembering some of the stuff he’d learned and twisting his hips to the right, bucking a startled Rodney sideways.  At the same time, he stretched his arms out as far as he could and watched Rodney’s horrified face come closer as he fell forward.

Rodney swore and scrambled to let go of John’s wrists, and that was all the opening John needed.  He shoved  at Rodney’s right shoulder and within a couple of seconds Rodney was lying flat on his back, his gaze riveted to John’s.

John leaned over him, careful not to touch any part of him, because he needed every brain cell to be behind him on this.  “How come you get to be pissed off, anyway?” he snarled.  “You were the one who stopped, not me.”

“I—thought it would be—” He winced.  “Best.”

“You thought it would be _best_?  Who died and made you God?”  John leaned down until his face was inches from Rodney’s, until Rodney had to get a little cross-eyed to keep him in focus.  “You think you can just waltz in and cut people open and then waltz away again when you’ve gotten what you wanted out of the experiment?”

Rodney had the grace to look horrified at that.  “I didn’t mean to—that wasn’t—”

“What the hell did you think would happen?  Did you think I’d say, hey, thanks for making me think maybe there was some chance I wasn’t—”  He stopped, suddenly horrified at himself.

“Alone?” Rodney supplied helpfully.

“Don’t put words in my mouth!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Rodney murmured, raising one hand in a placating gesture.  John hadn’t given him much room for elaborate hand gestures, though, so his fingers inadvertently brushed against John’s arm, sliding over the sweat-slick skin. 

Rodney looked at John.  John looked at Rodney.  This close, John could see the fine growth of stubble on Rodney’s cheeks and chin, see the eagerness evenly mixed with terror in his eyes.

Rodney’s fingers closed around John’s bicep as tight as a pressure bandage stanching a wound.  John squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.

“Can we stop talking now?” Rodney asked hoarsely.

“Works for me,” John agreed, closing the final distance between them to claim Rodney’s mouth in a graceless, messy kiss.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
Rodney’s trip through the wormhole from Earth to Atlantis, though nearly instantaneous in relativistic terms, seemed at the time to be the longest trip he’d ever taken in his life. 

The walk—staggering, lust-drunk run, whatever—from the gym to John’s quarters beat intergalactic travel all to hell, because his dick kept asking _Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?_  until Rodney wanted to drag John into the nearest convenient supply closet.

But then, he reminded himself, it was a hell entirely of his own making.  Some perverse impulse had prompted Rodney to put things on hold until they could attain some measure of privacy; John would have been perfectly content to rub against Rodney right there on the gym floor until both of them were rendered very, very happy.  And his shocking disregard for decorum persisted all the way down the hall to the transporter, where John stroked the back of Rodney’s damp neck, and in the transporter itself, where John shoved Rodney against the wall and braced his hands above his head and kissed him and kissed him, and down another hall to John’s quarters, which had only been chosen because they were fifty feet closer to the transporter than Rodney’s quarters, and if either of them had had to wait another minute they would have gone crazy with it.

As John willed the door closed—god, why was that such a turn-on?—and backed Rodney toward his bed, it occurred to Rodney that he had to be at least half-crazy already, because what the hell was he thinking, believing he could have this?  Even if John was a gift he was allowed to open today, who knew if he was going to be taken back tomorrow, returned to the dust of the cosmos like Gaul and Abrams and too many others? 

And then John’s hands were pushing up Rodney’s shirt so that they could stake claim, blaze pioneering trails of warmth and possession over the skin of his abdomen and chest and back, and Rodney—possibly for the first time in years—stopped thinking.  Instead, he occupied his brain with instructing his own hands to reciprocate, and opened himself up to the scent and the sounds and the feel of John. 

Their clothes disappeared in a blur of hands and the occasional jab from an elbow, but Rodney didn’t complain when John caught him in the stomach as he yanked his rebellious shirt off and threw it aside.  Rodney looked up and saw John’s dog tags hanging innocuously over his sternum, nestled against the pale skin and dark, silky hair.  He was abruptly reminded of the time he saw them right before Ford stopped John’s heart, and the next thing he knew he was standing there like a goof with one hand spread over John’s left pectoral muscle.

But John didn’t look at him like he was a goof, only covered Rodney’s hand with his own and placed his mouth over Rodney’s.  Rodney groaned and used his other hand to begin fumbling with John’s belt.

They didn’t talk at all, which was unusual for Rodney, who in the few times he’d managed to take another human being to bed tended to sabotage himself with and endless low-level barrage of thankful prayers to gods he didn’t believe in and constant, concerned questions as to the adequacy of his performance.  This time, however, there was no need for either, because John was no divinity on a pedestal, but real flesh and blood and too-fragile bone, and Rodney _knew _how to touch him, _knew _how to please him, though he couldn’t have even guessed where the knowledge was coming from. 

But the knowledge was there, and Rodney had the proof every time John moaned or sighed or hissed a pleasure-pain burst of air between his teeth, felt the evidence of John’s arousal as he watched his fingers curl around the heat of it, saw the truth of it in John’s startled and nakedly pleading eyes.  Rodney kissed him with shocking lewdness, driving his tongue into the depths of John’s mouth over and over, trailing his mouth wetly over John’s sweaty skin, biting the tendons in his neck, the vulnerable skin of his inner elbow.  John thrashed and sighed and rolled him over and straddled him, a grinning invitation to sin lit from below, and Rodney knew that if he ended up as a Wraith after-dinner mint on the next mission he couldn’t say he hadn’t lived life to the fullest after this. 

“See? This is how you do it,” John said, wiggling his ass against Rodney’s very interested lap.  “Pin the hips so they can’t throw you.”

“I’ll remember that,” Rodney panted, and John moved his hips again and Rodney began pleading brokenly, because you could lead an old horse to new tricks but, oh, fuck it—

“God,” John murmured, “I think I want, I want to—”

“Yeah, okay,” Rodney breathed, nodding furiously, and John leaned in and laughed into his mouth.

“You know, huh?”  He sobered then, pulled back and looked at Rodney, his face so open it was a raw wound.  “You know, don’t you?”

Rodney slid his hands over the curve of John’s ass and John touched his forehead to Rodney’s and sucked in air like he was returning to life.

“I know,” Rodney said, meaning this, meaning everything.  “I know.”

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

  
By the time John finished recording his message to Sumner’s maybe-family it was late, and the corridors of Atlantis were strangely quiet, quieter than they’d been in days.  It was as though everyone was taking a few minutes to replenish depleted supplies of resolve, to remember why they were fighting to stay alive.  They were probably thinking of loved ones, looking over precious photographs or child’s drawings they’d brought with them, rereading letters of their own for the hundredth or thousandth time.

When John wanted to remind himself of the reason he was interested in remaining alive, all he could do—no, all he _needed _to do—was knock on the right door.

Rodney’s blue eyes were bleary and bloodshot, his expression sour until he registered the identity of his visitor.  “Hey,” he said, his voice hushed and sleep-roughened, “are you all right?”

“Are you?”  John shot back.

“Of course not.”

John only stared at Rodney’s upper lip, which was now marred by a dusting of stubble.

“John.”

John raised his eyes.  “Hm.”

“You’re staring at my mouth in a semi-public place.”

“Upper lip.”

“What?”

“I’m staring at your upper lip.  I like it.”

Rodney scowled.  “It’s crooked.”

“Why I like it,” John murmured, smiling a little crookedly himself.

“Oh.  Well, I suppose that makes some kind of sense, because I can spend whole minutes contemplating your ears.”

“I couldn’t, uh, I couldn’t,” John said suddenly, “I couldn’t save them.”

“Come inside,” Rodney said, putting a warm hand on John’s arm.

“I mean,” John explained as the doors closed behind them, “We saved some of them, a few, but not enough, not enough, they took them _all_, Jesus Christ they didn’t leave _anybody_— and all I could do was _hide _and _watch_—”

“John—”

“I don’t know if I can save anybody any more, Rodney, God, I don’t know—” John clamped his mouth shut and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, hard, because _shit_, he couldn’t afford to do this, but something told him he couldn’t afford not to, either, so he might as well get it over with now.  He came back to himself slowly, realizing first that Rodney had somehow gotten him to sit on the bed beside him, and second that he was currently rubbing John’s back with a surprising gentleness.

“I don’t know either,” Rodney was saying, while his hand moved slowly, “but you don’t have to carry it all.  We’re here.  I’m here.”

John took his hands away from his eyes and cocked his head.  “Rodney McKay, Professional Hero?”

Rodney bowed slightly.  “At your service.”

John felt his smile return, felt the first glimmer of joy and opened himself to it before it could die from asphyxiation.  “So does that make us the Dynamic Duo?”

“Only if I get to be Batman.”

John arched a brow.  “Traumatic childhood incident?”

“My sister was always Batman because she was older.  Besides annoying the hell out of me, I think it adversely affected my psychosexual development.”

“Oh yeah?” John murmured, leaning closer and enjoying the way Rodney’s eyes widened.  “I hadn’t noticed.”

“No, it’s definitely messed with my head, because even though I’ve seen you naked I still can’t tell whether that was a compliment or a crack—”

“Rodney,” John said, half annoyed, half pleading, and Rodney obligingly stopped talking a split second before John’s mouth covered his.

“See,” Rodney said, between kisses, “I’ve always had this love-hate relationship with the superhero type—”

“Which one is this?” John asked, pushing him onto his back and straddling him. 

Rodney’s gaze darted to John’s left shoulder.  “Can I tell you later?”

“No,” John answered, touching Rodney’s face with the tips of his fingers.  God, it was beyond bearing that it had taken him thirty-six years and a trip to another galaxy to find this, but it also made a crazy kind of sense.  Because if ever there was a moment when John could believe he deserved something good, it was this one.  “Tell me now.  There is no later.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Fine.  There _might be_ no later.  God, Rodney, you’re making me—”

“Okay.  Yeah.  It is.  The first one.”

John kissed him again, this time with a hint of a bite.  “You’re a born romantic, aren’t you?”  Sitting back, he began pushing Rodney’s t-shirt up.

Impatiently, Rodney yanked the shirt off and started on John’s jacket.  His hair was sticking up at odd angles and his brow was creased as he fumbled with the fastenings in the low light.  “If that’s what you wanted, you picked the wrong person.”

John didn’t know what to say to that right away, so he focused on stripping Rodney, which didn’t take long, then on stripping himself, which did, even with four hands working on it.  There was a clumsiness to this time that hadn’t been there before, as though they were both thinking too hard about what they were doing.  When they were finally naked and John had his fingers wrapped around Rodney’s solid cock, he realized that the only way this would work was if they kept the thinking to a minimum. 

So John reached for his jacket and found the condom and the small tube he’d appropriated from the stores.  He saw the exact moment Rodney registered the meaning of those items, saw the shift of his eyes that meant he’d started thinking again.  

John held up the condom in one hand and waved it to get Rodney’s attention.  “You.”  He shook the tube at him.  “Me.”

Rodney’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head.  “But—” 

John leaned down swiftly and silenced him with a kiss, then took him by the shoulders and rolled them so that Rodney was on top of him.  God, the weight and the warmth of him felt good, felt _real_.  “Rodney,” he said, not allowing himself to think about the words before they came out, “I couldn’t have picked anyone else.  I didn’t have a _chance_.  You’re the most conceited human being in two galaxies, and you snore like a freight train, and you’re braver than you have any right to be and you’re the reason I still want to be in one piece when all this shit is over.  So okay.  Yeah.  It is for me, too.”

Rodney stared down at him for a long time, and John didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Rodney nodded once and John felt his lungs expand.   “Okay,” Rodney said.  “Uh, have you ever—”  He trailed off, helpless, and John decided to rescue him.

“Not really.  Though I might have practiced last week.”

“You prac—oh, God,” Rodney breathed, kissing John hungrily.  His cock was pushing into John’s belly and his stubble scratched John’s chin and John needed this more than he’d needed anything in a hell of a long time.  He refused to think about the implications of that fact, choosing to focus instead on the endearing mixture of lust, terror and joy in Rodney’s eyes as he set himself the task of readying John’s body.  Granted, it wasn’t as grand and noble a task as saving Atlantis, but John certainly appreciated the effort, and told him so in the answering touch of his hands and mouth and tongue.  When John took the condom and rolled it slowly over Rodney’s cock, the terror melted away and Rodney gasped and groaned and shuddered and stared at John like he was the definition of division by zero.

That same instinct they’d developed on missions saved them the awkwardness of finding a way to fit together, because as though sensing John’s restlessness, Rodney moved off him, giving him freedom to move.  Without conscious thought, John turned away and rose up on his knees, legs spread and hands braced against the wall.  He heard Rodney make a small, breathless noise behind him, and then felt the warmth of Rodney’s hands on his hips and the hardness of Rodney’s knees against the insides of his thighs.  Reaching back, he used that same instinct to guide Rodney’s cock as he sat back and took it inside.

When he was all the way down he registered the tickle of Rodney’s breath and the press of his forehead against John’s shoulder blade, the trembling of Rodney’s thigh muscles as they supported John’s weight.  John pushed up, feeling Rodney’s cock leave him a little, and Rodney let out a sharp gust of air as though he’d been punched.

“Oh—oh God, that’s—” Rodney canted his hips, pushing in to the hilt again, and John groaned at the slight change in angle.  He slid back, forcing Rodney down, then repeated the motion until Rodney caught on and was rolling shallowly under him like a gentle but powerful ocean swell, rising and retreating in a hypnotic rhythm.

When John allowed himself to think, he reasoned that eventually they’d have to change position so that Rodney could really fuck him, because this was a pleasant beginning, but the only way to end it was hard and fast.  And then Rodney pulled him back a little too far and John flung an arm back to steady himself and hooked it around Rodney’s neck.  Rodney sighed out his name and licked the rim of his ear and braced his arm across John’s chest and suddenly John was coming as his hips described tiny, perfect circles, as Rodney moved under him and inside him like the implacable sea.

    
    
    
    
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

    
    
    
    
 

“John.”

“Hmmph.”

“John, I can’t feel my arm.”

John groaned but obeyed the directive of the gentle shove, rolling onto his side.  He was rewarded by a warm body fitting itself to his back and a tentative hand settling on his hip.

“I have a question about what you said earlier,” Rodney said just as John was drifting off again. 

“What part of ‘I practiced’ didn’t you get?”

“No, no, I got that, and by the way, I thank you for possibly the best fantasy image _ever_, but—”

John sighed.  “You were talking about something else.”

“Frankly, yes.  Define ‘freight train’ for me.  What are we talking about in terms of decibel level?”

John smiled.  “You ever been sitting at ground zero when they drop an H-bomb?”

“Oh, give me a break.”

“Okay, just an A-bomb.  Nothing huge.  Say about fifty-kiloton range.”

“John.”

“Hm.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Works for me,” John murmured, feeling Rodney’s arm tighten around his chest briefly before going limp, hand falling naturally over his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: mention of character deaths (canon).
> 
> First published June 2005.


End file.
